BLUES boss Steve Bruce was expecting to wrap up the signing of Tottenham's Hossam Ghaly today.

But Bruce may have to admit defeat in his attempts to persuade fellow Egyptian Mido to follow suit.

Bruce admitted his chances of landing Tottenham's #6million-rated striker were less than 50-50, but he hasn't given up hope.

He said: "It looks a bit off at the moment, but it's nothing to do with personal terms, I can confirm that. It's to do with other clauses in his contract.

"I'd look for another striker if one was available, but it's whether you can get one. We have four weeks before the window closes and last season we did our best business in the last week."

While Blues were beating Walsall 2-0 on Saturday, Ghaly was being shown the sights of Birmingham.

In the meantime Bruce will consider spreading his net in search of increased firepower, although he couldn't have helped being heartened by the rejuvenated Mikael Forssell.

Plagued by injury last season, Forssell was firing on all cylinders against Walsall and Bruce admitted: "It's a really big bonus, it's like having a new striker on board.

"You don't have to be Einstein to realise he's feeling good with himself at the moment, that's because he's playing pain-free. If he stays well, then what a good striker he is. There's no question that he's in with a chance of playing in a fortnight.

"There was talk of him going to play in Germany, because we thought it might do him good. Thankfully that didn't happen and now he's given us a reminder of what he can do.

"As for the knee, we just hope that he's fixed. The problem is we don't know from one day to the next. We didn't rush him back last year. I put him in against Norwich and I thought that was unfair on him.

"Now he's built up his confidence in the summer. He's given himself every chance as he's not missed a day's training in pre-season."